The giant internet search engine, Google, is apparently not just an impartial repository of information and data. Google has been flexing it's muscle lately, by censoring websites with political viewpoints with which it disagrees by excluding sites from listings.

Frank Salvato of the New Media Journal has had enough.

"They banned The New Media Journal. They banned MichNews.com. They banned The Jawa Report." Salvato says. "Google News and Google Search Engine are on a campaign of political correctness that sees them denying access to their service to any website - be it news, opinion or a hybrid of both - that dares to address the subject of radical Islam."

Salvato has started a campaign of his own against Google! He is publishing an "Anti-Google Search Engine Index" at: http://www.newmediajournal.us/daily_columns/anti-google_search_engine_index.htm which lists alternative search engines. "This index offers an ever-expanding list of search engines, many more comprehensive and many who do not manipulate content based on the ideology of political correctness.

A little known fact about CITGO gasoline is that CITGO is wholly owned by the Venezuelan government. Venezuela's dictator, Hugo Chavez is pushing a socialist revolution and he is closely allied with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Chavez has vowed to bring down the US government. In a recent television interview, Chavez stated, "Enough of imperialist aggression; we must tell the world: Down with the US empire. We have to bury imperialism this century."

Chavez has played host to such notables recently as Cindy Sheehan and Harry Belafonte – both known for their rants against the president as a "terrorist".

The Venezuela government, headed by dictator Chavez, is the sole owner of the CITGO Gasoline Company. Sales of products at CITGO stations generate cash back to Chavez to help him in his vow to bring down our government. You can verify the ownership of CITGO on their own website at http://www.citgo.com/AboutCITGO.jsp.

So here we have a socialist dictator, determined to bring down the government of the US, and using our money to finance achieving that goal!

CITGO Gasoline is closely aligned with Southland Corporation's 7-11 stores and most if not all 7-11 stores that sell gasoline are selling CITGO gas. So the next time you stop in for a Slurpee or a Big Gulp – if you also pump a tank of gas, you're putting cash in the hands of Hugo Chavez and his agenda of hostility toward the US.

Symantec, McAfee, F-Secure and other vendors in the computing security community are warning that a Zero-Day exploit of a vulnerability in Microsoft Word has been discovered. A Zero-Day exploit refers to a previously unknown vulnerability that is discovered only after and attack has already exploited it. Such attacks are particularly dangerous, as antivirus software offers little or no protection against a zero-day exploit.

Discovered May 19, as a result of a single targeted attack against a Japanese government office, the vulnerability in Word allows the malicious code to be transmitted via a Word Document.

Opening the document in Word 2003 installs the Trojan. If opened in Word 2000, the document crashes the program, and doesn't install the Trojan.

Symantec has designated the Trojan as Backdoor.Ginwui, and it has designated the Word 2003 document that carries it as Trojan.Mdropper.H. Ginwui is a fully featured backdoor with rootkit characteristics.

Opening the malicious document opens a backdoor which then pings an Asian IP address in order to receive commands from a hacker. The backdoor permits the hacker to do any of the following on an infected computer:
• Create, read, write, delete and search for files and directories
• Access and modify the Registry
• Manipulate services
• Start and kill processes
• Take screenshots • Enumerate open windows
• Create its own application window
• Get information about infected computer
• Lock, restart or shutdown Windows
• Create a pipe and read files from it
• Start a remote command shell
• Enumerate network resources

To date, exploitation of this vulnerability has been very limited. However, as attackers learn how to exploit the new vulnerability, there will be more widespread attacks. Antivirus vendors have already updated their signatures to remove the infection, however the Word remains vulnerable until Microsoft issues a patch for Word 2003. Microsoft's next Patch Tuesday is scheduled for June 13.

Doug Edelman is a conservative political commentator and a contributing editor for The Conservative Voice, and his work is also seen on News By Us, The American Daily, The Post Chronicle, New Media Journal, Capitol Hill Coffee House etc. None of these pays him, so for the support of his family, he is also an IT Consultant/Contractor and owner of a Computer Services Business. He has taught PC Maintenance & Repair and Networking at his local Community College, and maintains a blog at http://edeldoug.blogs.com/.

Unlike the typical petition campaign, where volunteers with clipboards haunt the malls and entrances to supermarkets, (where signatories may or may not be represented by the official it is sent to) this petition is different.Each signatory sends their own individual copy to their own elected officials.Posting both the text and a downloadable document on the internet allows individuals to print, sign and mail the petition; or they can cut/paste into email which they send to their Representative and Senators.Rather than presenting a petition with thousands of signatures, the elected officials receive thousands of individually signed letters and emails from their own constituents.

Also, unique from most petitions is the fact that, while the overall document presents a comprehensive position on numerous facets ofa very complex issue, the petition allows the signatory to endorse only those individual provisions with which they agree, while withholding their endorsement of others.Thus many people who disagree with one or more aspects of the petition but support the overall concept may lend their signatures to those parts with which they agree, rather than forgoing signing the petition at all.

"We want our our elected officials to get a real picture of what the lawful citizens of the US think of Illegal Immigration and what to do about it" said one of the petition's sponsors."We would much rather see congress receive a flood of petitions with a variety of provisions endorsed or passed on, than to receive a fraction of that response – only from those who wholeheartedly agree to every sentence."

Another unique aspect is that the petition's instructions ask signatories to send the petitions only to the signatory's own elected representatives."It will be most effective if the document is sent only to these specific officials as you are their constituent.Sending a copy to Ted Kennedy if you don't live in MA is not going to influence him.Sending it to Dick Durbin if you are a resident of IL might make an impact."